I'm moving further away (want you near me)
by ladylemonia
Summary: One-shot. For the Runaway Swan Thief Week: Lily, Emma and Neal steal some cinammon rolls and dance under the stars. The evidence finds its way to Mary Margaret hands, ten years later. 'I'm moving further (want you near me)'- Yazoo.


**I'm moving further away (want you near me)**

The green grass feels soft beneath Emma's fingers as she lays down on it, avoiding the red striped blanket near her.

"I'm pretty sure I put this, so that we could not get wet," Neal says pointedly, at Emma who just shrugs.

"Mmmh, never been good at keeping rules," she says loving the feel of the wet grass on her palms.

"Yep," says Lily laying down next to her, but over the blanket instead. "Me too. What _are_ you looking at Neal?"

Neal turns his head away from the sky and the dotted, blinking lights adorning it. They have been on the road for some weeks now, but they've chosen to stay low for some days after stealing some food from a mall.

It was good time, he thinks. They even took some photos in a photo booth and stole some cinnamon rolls, requested by both Emma and Lily, not that Neal could oppose. They taste _good_.

He reaches into Emma's beaded bag and takes out a cinnamon roll. "I'm looking at the stars," he says before stuffing the cinnamon roll into his mouth.

"Hey," yelps Emma. "That was supposed to be mine!"

But Lily asks curiously, "What? Are the stars _that_ interesting?"

Neal chuckles.

"They're certainly interesting but... for me the stars are special."

He notices the way Emma immediately stiffens and Lily perks up. Special isn't common … not for them anyways, they don't get special. So this is very important.

His brown eyes shift to the dotted points on the sky.

"The stars are," he struggles with his words, unsure on which way to describe them. He's never been that good at spinning tales and offering explanations, Papa was better— _no, don't think of him._ But his reminder of that man only fuels his desire to explain properly, for them to understand, so he does: "They are never changing beings. There's no moon, no guide without them. They've always, just, been there, the stars had accompanied me from the moment I came to this world and through everything, I guess."

Of course, the meaning of 'when I came to this world' is literal. But Emma and Lily don't know that, they don't have to know that.

They don't have to be burdened with his horrible past, that's a weight in his chest, in his shoulders, that's constantly ripping him apart and weaving him together _over and over_ again.

They have been already burdened with his love, why should he burden them with more?

They don't have to know about the demon with the face of a boy, with words like honey, that could twist everything at his will and that could wove the most amazing of tales. They don't need to know about Baelfire— and who's Baelfire anyways? He's dead, he's not Baelfire anymore. He's Neal now, he's no longer the boy who escaped with the stars. He's the one who owes them quietly and without grief.

And they can't know, he thinks.

They just _can't_ , because they are the only thing Neal has. They are _special,_ a different kind of special. Lily and Emma aren't stars, there's millions of them, flickering, blinking. But there's only one Emma and only one Lily— he cannot afford to lose them, ever.

And he reaches out a kisses Lily's cheek. She gives him a smile through dark, starry eyes, her shadowy locks spill against her shoulders.

" _But_ I've got more special things than stars. I've got you two. My starry eyed girl, with a smile sharp as fire," he says grinning at Lily, who smiles back. Then he reaches for Emma whose eyes lit up behind her glasses, smiling back. He presses a fluttering kiss against her skin. "And my flower, my beautiful flower, with hair like spun straw and with flowers clinging at your skin," he traces her flower tattoo lovingly.

The three of them spend some time watching the stars, until Neal stands up and goes to the Bug. Emma frowns at Lily confused, but the younger girl only shrugs back.

Then Neal comes backs with a radio, he got it from an old foster home, Lily knows. It's old but well cared for. He fumbles with it for a while until the delightful sounds of a happy jazz begin to swirl around them.

"May I have this dance, my ladies?" Neal bows with a mischievous smirk plastered on his face, extending a hand to them.

Emma smirks and grabs his hand, he pulls her up and does the same for Lily. The hold hands and dance lazily, in the middle of fluttering kisses and whispered words of the song.

"Looking from a window above, it's like a story of love," Lily sings before kissing Emma's neck, near her ear. Neal's arms curl around them and they sway against the music. "Can you hear me?"

Neal says while pressing their bodies together: "Came back only yesterday. I'm moving farther away, want you near me."

"All I need was the love you gave," Emma unbounds her hair from its ponytail and lets it fall, while pressing her forehead to Neal's.

Lily grins slyly, pressing a kiss in Neal's collarbone, humming quietly. "All I needed for another day. And I all I ever knew— "

"—only you," chorus the three of them and they dance all night, between breathless kisses, at the rhythm of _Only You_.

The stars blink and twinkle ward over them, faithfully.

* * *

"Well, it's late and tomorrow I have to meet Graham for the deputy thing. Night, Mary Margaret," says 28 year old Emma Swan, climbing up the stairs.

"Good night," replies Mary Margaret quietly. She stands there just looking at the boxes for moment in silence. She's about to turn, to go and change into her pyjamas when a flash of white catches her eyes.

Mary Margaret turns around abruptly, in time to watch a photograph flutter to the floor. She kneels down and picks it up, before hesitating. Was it right for her to touch Emma's stuff like this?

Emma's elusive and guarded and the only thing that Mary Margaret knows about her is that she's an orphan, likes her hot chocolate with cinnamon and that she's Henry's birth mother. It isn't enough, she tells herself firmly. She needs to know more about the girl she's living with.

She knows she's lying to herself, but there's something about Emma that just lights her up.

A few days ago Emma had arrived to Storybrooke and began lightening everything, _everyone_ up, in a blurry of red leather and a yellow bug.

Mary Margaret shakes her head, sighing.

"I'm starting to sound like Henry," and his theory, which she is partially to blame for.

It won't hurt, she decides as she picks up the photo.

The first thing she notices is that it's the type of photos you take on photo booth, it´s a long piece of paper filled with five pics. The other thing that she notices is that she recognizes someone in that: Emma.

Sure, she doesn't look the same. She's younger and her hair is in a ponytail and she's wearing glasses, but it's definitely Emma.

Mary Margaret doesn't recognize the other two people in the photo, each at a side of Emma. A girl, with brown hair and dark, dark eyes that make her stomach curl and is it guilt? The boy is different matter, his eyes are bright and he wears an impish smile on his face, which is strangely familiar.

She swears she's seen it before, then she realizes with a jolt that this must be Henry's father. Yes, she can see it now, the way Emma´s eyes lit up looking at him and how he smiles at both girls.

But it's the two of them and in the next photo Emma's looking at the girl the same way she looks at Henry's father and the girl is looking at Henry's father with this look on her eyes —

No, so he isn't Henry's father? Of course not, he has to be. They have the same grin, the way their eyes lit up is the same, and he has to be.

Mary Margaret turns the photo around and finds, not surprisingly, a message. It says:

 **What three teenagers do with a cinnamon roll and the world at their feet?**

 ** _Emma_ , **_Lily_ _and_ **Neal Cassidy**

 _Summer of 2001 (Only you)_

Immediately she feels guilty. It's not her place to snoop around, looking at things that aren't hers, she thinks as she tucks the photo away, carefully.

Mary Margaret heads for her bedroom, taking one lingering glance at it, before going to sleep. She won't think about that photo in months, but, by then, it'll be too late.


End file.
